Izumo Taisha part Two

I had practically forgotten that I didn't finish talking about Izumo Taisha, but I'm sure you all enjoyed my meanderings about language in the mean time. If the comments sections are any indication, than spammers certainly enjoy my blog, anyway.

So here's a cherry tree on the grounds of the taisha, the first one I saw in bloom. Cherry blossom viewing is a huge thing here, but since I just did that last week, I'll have a new update with pictures just for that later.


Here are some shots of some outlying buildings of the shrine.

And this is the main building. People were going up to it and praying and all. Some dudes even asked me to take their picture for them, so I did.

There were two statues, one of a horse and one of an ox, in a little building near the center. I don't know what significance they have, but I assume there's a reason.

Here's a neat little waterfall with some sort of mini-shrine.

And here's a thing that the shrine is famous for; a giant rope. I forget what the name for these rope things that shrines often have is, but the one at Izumo is gigantic, probably the biggest in the country. There is a tradition of throwing coins up at it, and if the coins stick, your marriage is supposed to be brought good luck. Or something.

And another shot of a doorway.

And some kind of artwork out front.

That about does it for Izumo Taisha.

Yesterday I went to a school entrance ceremony, because school is starting up again, which necessitated wearing a suit. Unfortunately, the snow tires are still on my car because they haven't given me back my normal tires yet, which has caused them to get worn down, which in turn caused one of them tires to go flat, so I had to put on the spare tire while wearing a suit. Awesome.

So, I was running a bit behind of schedule, though not really in danger of being late, so I decided to take the shorter route to school, which basically goes up and over a mountain, but I guess the car didn't like that with the spare on, because it completely died in the middle of the road and I couldn't get it to go forward, so I just backed it down the mountain in neutral until I could get to a spot off to the side, where I could presumably get help.

As it turns out, a lot of Japanese people are terrible drivers and were completely baffled that a car could die, I guess, as it generally took them a bit of waving to figure out to just go around. One dude driving a big truck even stopped behind me ( I stopped reversing when I saw people) and honked his horn. You would think it would be pretty obvious that I haven't just stopped my car in the middle of the road and put on my hazard lights and been waving you around for the last two minutes just for the fun of it. Eventually, he got the idea and decided to drive around me on the left (that is, in the lane I was in) instead of just using the right lane, avoiding running into my car by about an inch. Of course, the truck following him decided to do the exact same thing. It is amazing how stupid people can be.

Anyway, I got my car back to a spot off the road, but when I put it in drive this time, it didn't give me any warning lights or any trouble at all, so I ended up just turning the car around and driving to school the long but flat way. Ridiculous.